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New Delhi : Minister of State of Railway Suresh C Angadi, Chairman, Railway Board, Vinod Kumar Yadav, along with Railway Board Members held a Video Conference review of the performance of the railways till August , 2019, with all General Managers (GMs) of Zonal Railways/Production Units and Divisional Railway Managers (DRMs). The review covered issues of safety, punctuality, freight loading, passenger traffic, infrastructure projects, locomotive, coach production, and other ongoing developmental projects in Indian Railways.
Angadi complimented the officers for the excellent performance of Zones and Divisions in August 2019 and gave directions to work towards further improving safety, punctuality, cleanliness and upkeep of stations and trains and passenger comfort to meet the expectations of the people. Angadi emphasised that all officials of Indian Railways should work as a team to achieve the goals and targets in a time-bound manner for advancement of Indian Railways and the country.
Reviewing the performance of Zonal Railways during the current year, Chairman, Railway Board, Vinod Kumar Yadav, directed the General Managers to closely monitor progress of projects related to ensuring safety in train operations. Yadav emphasised on expeditious completion of safety works like elimination of Manned Level crossings and construction of Road over Bridge (RoBs)/Road Under Bridges (RuBs), interlocking of heavy Manned level Crossings, and elimination of old mechanical signalling by electronic signalling etc.
Yadav congratulated the Zones for good progress on elimination of Manned Level crossings (MLC) which is a major safety improvement initiative. Altogether 534 MLCs were eliminated during April-August 2019 compared to 167 during the same period last year. He applauded the officers for bringing significant improvement in punctuality of mail/express trains which has reached a level of 74% compared to 67% last year. Further, the minutes lost per train have also reduced significantly. Yadav also complimented Railtel and Divisions for providing free Wi-Fi to passengers over 4,926 stations, according to a PIB release.
The Zones and Divisions were directed to complete all preparations with regard to 150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi. Various initiatives being taken in this direction include elimination of single use plastic from railway premises, provision of bottle crushing machines, cleanliness of stations, trains and railway premises, tree plantation and development of 150 track side nurseries.